# How to stay motivated to learn languages with ADHD

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Lindie Botes
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF7XO9bKopI
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/40676

## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

Have you ever struggled to get started with a task if it is not new and novel or interesting or urgent? That is something I really struggle with. I recently started a language learning club. I asked a question on the group of h just wondering how many of us in this group are neurode divergent either ADHD or on the autism spectrum. And I was so pleasantly surprised as to how many people at least within the language club are neurode divergent. something that I think is often seen as a deficiency or a disability or a disorder. I truly believe can be a real strength and asset within language learning. — Disclaimer, this is not medical advice. I'm not a medical professional. I was diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago. And — this is based on my personal subjective experience. Well, I want to focus on the three things that drive specifically people with ADHD. You may have heard this or seen it, but people with ADHD are driven by three things among others. First of all is urgency. Okay, the task has to be urgent. If it is far in the future, if your goals are too cloudy and lofty, you're not going to feel like, oh, this is something I need to do. The second thing that we are driven by is interest. This has to be something of personal cool and fun for me otherwise I don't want to do it. I mean reading and checking emails, updating spreadsheets, but doing language learning where it's always a discovery of new stuff. Yes, please. The third thing that we are driven by is novelty. This means anything that is new, exciting. I want to add which I think applies to pretty much every human in fact is mastery. This means the drive and the desire to improve a skill and get really good at it. So these are the things specifically for me and perhaps many of you can relate that drive me to do something. That is really why I struggle to do basic tasks. It's so embarrassing to mention, but I cannot wash my dishes. It is the most boring task. It is gross. I don't want to be touching stuff. And I know it will be easier to just wash the cutlery and crockery after I'm done eating, but it's not that easy. Why? Because it's not urgent. I have other forks in the drawer. I don't have a dishwasher. Should really get a dishwasher. Second of all, washing dishes is not interesting to me. [clears throat] Doing laundry is more interesting than washing the dishes. And for mastery, I don't strive to become the best dishwasher. However, let's look at language learning. I will start at number two. If you've ever decided to learn a language, likely you are very interested in it. It could be the culture, people, it could be the syntax, the grammar, the vocab, and interest is really one of the key things that can keep you motivated while learning a language. Next one is novelty. Learning a language, there was always something new. I truly believe you are never finished learning a language. You cannot know every single word in the language. You're still discovering, I hope, new words in your native language and mastery. We don't want to suck at language learning. And then urgency. How do you create urgency in language learning? Well, if we want to be a master at a specific language, it is urgent for us. Like, we want to get there quickly. And I see this with a lot of my language learning coaches of why am I not improving fast enough? Why am I so frustrated that I didn't reach my goal this month? It's because of these things that this is what you're driven by. Language learning is not that easy and we can end up being frustrated and discouraged. So let's look at these things and see how can we use this to drive us to our benefit instead of seeing these as barriers to entry or issues to progress in our language learning. We're not going to talk about interest because hello languages are interesting. That's a given. If it's your hobby, you're great on that front. Urgency. Why can this be an issue for language learners with ADHD? and how can we turn it into a power? A tendency I see in the language community is urgency. I need to improve fast. If you just search like language learning videos, how to learn a language fast, how to do this quickly. Perhaps I have videos like that too, but the algorithm favors it. I don't like clickbait. Learning a language to fluency is something that takes a very long time. me with ADHD or me just as a person, I am incredibly impatient and it is very frustrating to trudge through difficult grammar and not be able to progress within like to become fluent in a year. It is a lifelong process. So that's why people who are driven by urgency can struggle with pushing through and being motivated to learn a language. When things get difficult, especially when you hit the B1 intermediate plateau, it's easy to want to give up. You might feel like why am I not progressing? What am I doing wrong? Am I stupid? I promise you, you are not stupid. You are smarter than you think.

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) [5:00]

It is just because you are driven by urgency. And unfortunately, in language learning, we can't always see immediate results. When you are a beginner, as I've mentioned many times in other videos, it's easy to see yourself progress fast. You go from knowing absolutely nothing to suddenly picking up so many words. Your brain is like a sponge. I am teaching Japanese to a girl and we've only had two lessons. And I'm so surprised. It's so beautiful to see how just in the second lesson she can already make sentences because everything is fresh and new. And if you learn the sentence structure, you learn basic nouns, verbs, adjectives, you learn how to make it, then suddenly you can talk after two hours of Japanese. At least in this case, and with my teaching method to her. But when you've been doing this for years, like me with Korean, I have reached a level where I'm very comfortable and I can communicate just fine. I passed topic level five out of six a few years ago. I do often get frustrated when I'm watching a series and I'm like, why did I not know this word? Or wait, why did that just go over my head? [snorts] Specifically, when you reach this intermediate plateau, the dreaded intermediate plateau, I have some other videos about that you can watch as well. the urgency is gone. What I mean by that is you are already comfortable to communicate. I can get by. I might not be where I want to be. at the level of a native speaker or super advanced, but hey, I can get by. But you might be relying on the same vocab, the same sentences, same grammar structures. You're fine. People aren't like correcting you the whole time. You're comfortable. And that comfort can be an issue because it loses the urgency. you know, I've reached a point where I'm fine, but I don't feel that pressure to improve much more and to reach a high advanced level. And with that, where you can create artificial I was going to say artificial intelligence, artificial urgency in language learning as somebody who struggles with that is to bring in external pressure. What does that mean? Well, one of the ways that I like to bring in external pressure in language learning is exams and tests. I'm not saying that everyone has to go sign up for standardized exams now, but I cannot tell you how fast and how much I improved in my Korean when I signed up for the topic exam. It was because there was literally a deadline for me to reach a certain level. I was so driven, so motivated. I split up my time with grammar structures, how many I had to do per day, vocab words, flashcard decks. It was incredible to see how rapidly my Korean improved. And that's because I had that sense of urgency. and literally a deadline. You can also have a sense of urgency where there's something really important coming up, an interview in a different language. You're moving to a country. Hello, me moving to Hungary soon. I know I keep saying that, but my visa is taking forever. It is extremely crucial and urgent for me to learn Hungarian. And that's what keeps me going right now. I mean, Vietnamese, I love it. There's definitely interest. It's super interesting and beautiful to me, but there is no urgency. So, see if there's a way that you can bring in a sense of urgency. Ask yourself, why am I learning this language? And what can drive me to build urgency so that I have motivation to continue? Now, I'm kind of going to group interest, novelty, and mastery together. Generally for us, if something is new, it's interesting. I want to know more about it. And in most cases, I want to become good at it. There is mastery involved. I need to grow and develop. So on the note of learning new things, we know that AI is not going anywhere. It is something novel and in my career as a product designer, there is a chance I could lose my job if I don't grow and develop in AI skills. I have a whole notebook dedicated to AI, machine learning and no code tools. There is an app I have been using called Brilliant and on Brilliant I have been learning AI and logic. I have a very short attention span and I don't like boring things. So what I love about Brilliant is that I can learn through solving problems by actually doing things and not just sitting and watching videos. On Brilliant, as you learn by doing, you can excel in math, coding, AI, logic, and more. The learn by doing method and the deep content is crafted by worldclass teachers from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and more. Now, if you want to learn for free on Brilliant for a full 30 days, use the QR code on the screen or go to brilliant. org/lindy. And yes, that's how you pronounce my surname. For viewers of this video, you can get a 20% discount on a premium annual subscription where you get unlimited daily access to everything on Brilliant. Now, let's get to mastery. The art of language learning, the skill, the craft of learning languages is by nature mastery. You have to get to a point where you've mastered vocabulary, grammar structures, intonation, pronunciation to feel all right, this is

### Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) [10:00]

a skill I've developed. Yes, you can communicate with a little bit of knowledge. The more you develop in language learning, the more you are motivated to continue. When you see yourself growing and doing well, that's when you're like, okay, this is good. I want to keep going. You're not easily going to drop off from language learning unless you aren't doing something right. What do I mean by not doing something right? It is all in the mind. It is mindset. If you have done language coaching with me or if you've watched my videos, a lot of what I talk about is how your mindset, the way you think about your language learning affects how you learn. I cannot overemphasize how important the way you think is. It is not just about your learning techniques, your skills, your time, immersion, etc. I have a language coachie who has set really lofty goals for themselves. Something like uh practice uh 50 hours of listening in so- and so language and 20 hours of uh speaking in so- and so language. This is really good. It is a brilliant technique so that you can aim high. There's a sense of urgency if you've scheduled to do this in a month. But whether or not they reach these goals, your mindset at the end of the month after you've set these goals is the most important. Now I you will know who you are and I am trying very hard to keep your identity anonymous uh coach, but I think this is a really good example. So in one of our last calls, they said, "Oh, I feel like this month was a failure. I only did like um 18 hours of listening and like 12 hours of whatever. " And I'm like, that is actually so good. Do you realize how much you've done? So instead of looking at, oh, I didn't reach 50 hours of listening. I've only done 20. Look at it as, wow, I've done 20 hours. So you can have that goal. You My eyes are itching. You can have that goal of urgency and trying to reach something that is good to keep you motivated and going, but you're going to feel bad about your language learning process. If you look at it as I failed when you haven't reached that bar, this is really something that a lot of people struggle with, including myself. And if you've experienced this, I do want to encourage you to start looking at your language learning from a different way. Especially if you have ADHD, your standards tend to be very high, much higher than neurotypicals in many cases. And somebody else's 100% is like your 50%, right? So if you've only achieved what you think is 50%, for other people that is like way over 100%. I hope that makes sense. It is really crucial to keep some kind of a log or a tracker or a language journal where you can see what have I actually done. Now many people will enter into language learning thinking I need to make a list of goals and I have to reach them. My method and mindset for language learning has really changed a lot in at least the last three months where yes I do set goals but I look at it more as these are guidelines that I'm working towards and not things that I have to reach because the type of person I am the type of brain I have if I don't reach it I feel like a failure so instead I look back at what have I done right so instead of writing this week I need to do two hours of this and I need to take this lesson, I need to finish one chapter, etc. I have that in my mind. I call these like uh fluffy boundaries. If you've had coaching with me, you'll know I talk about fluffy boundaries, uh fluffy boxes, right? I know that I want to complete this textbook. I know I want to finish these lessons, but I don't force myself to do it every day because that can be stressful if I don't reach it one day. But I know it's there. And then when I have time and energy during the week or specifically on the weekends, then I work towards that. And instead of logging what I have to do and have I reached it or not, I log what have I done? And I look back and say, what do I naturally gravitate to? Oh, I tend to be uh practicing on this language app a lot and watching series instead of studying from a textbook. Hm, why is that? It's not good or bad necessarily, but does that help me advance in my language? reach mastery? And is there a sense of urgency attached to it? For me, practicing languages on language exchange apps, there was always a novelty. I'm always meeting new people. It is much more interesting than a predictable textbook, for instance. And I found that this interest really helps me grow. I learn faster when I'm doing something that's interesting for me. I get really excited about this topic and I tend to ramble, but I hope it's made sense and I hope this video gets you thinking about how to stay motivated in your language learning and how to keep things interesting. Really look back at what you've done instead of what you are forcing yourself to do. It is good to have deadlines and urgency but don't

### Segment 4 (15:00 - 16:00) [15:00]

tire yourself out and don't feel like a failure if you haven't reached that last thing I want to say which I also tell people a lot is we cannot expect ourselves to perform exactly the same at the same level every single day in other aspects of our lives. So why do we expect ourselves to do it in language learning? ADHD brains do not like repetitive structures. structure is good for us, but we rebel against it. It is not easy to do exactly the same thing every day. So, think about like going to the gym or cooking or even just doing your regular work or sleeping on time. That is so hard for us if you've managed the thing to sleep on time and wake up on time. Teach me your ways. But I cannot have structure like that in every single day. So why do I expect myself to do 20 minutes of Korean every single day and then you know three French lessons a week blah blah I'm not able to perform exactly at the same level in my normal life things fluctuate they go up and down it's nature it is nature of life goodness so why do I expect my language learning to be that way that's why it is so much more easy for me to look back at what have I done what do I naturally gravitate towards is it helping me progress and learn, do I enjoy it? Um, instead of forcing myself to do something when I know that is not how my brain works. I can't do exactly the same thing in exactly the same way every day. You might be able to. I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the comments. Let me know what you think about this topic. I hope it helped you and I will see you in the next video. Bye. Is